A wide range of media is available for consumption on computers, including, but not limited to, video, audio, still images and text. Such media are generally stored as computer files. Some computer file formats support a mix of different media, and accordingly result in multi-media files. Accordingly a multi-media file is a file that supports one or more forms of media. Additionally, there are other computer file formats are specific to a particular application, including, but not limited to, office productivity applications such as document editors, spreadsheets and slide presentations.
Presently, the ubiquity of media capture devices, including, but not limited to, video cameras, digital still cameras, and recorders as well as the proliferation computers and multi-media editors, has resulted in an explosion of media and multi-media files. Furthermore, internet facilities, including, but not limited to, media sharing sites and email has facilitated wide distribution of media and multi-media files.
Typically, a user must open and render a file in order to ascertain the contents of the file. However, doing so renders searching or sorting large numbers of files cumbersome and time-intensive. Efforts to associate non-rendered text strings with the files, called meta-tags, have enabled using text search techniques on non-text multi-media files such as video or audio.
However, because meta-tags are not typically rendered along with a multi-media file, meta-tags do not add, supplement, or otherwise augment the content of the multi-media file. In cases, including, but not limited to, commentary and annotations, it may be desirable to associate data with a multi-media file, wherein the associated data is to be rendered along with the multi-media file.
Associated data need not be limited to text. Associated data may in fact be a multi-media file itself. An example is a mashup where two multi-media files, often from different contexts, are synchronized together for aesthetic effect.
Presently, there is no generalized system to associate arbitrary data with a multi-media file. Furthermore, there is no generalized system to synchronize associated arbitrary data, or to distribute the associated arbitrary data. Moreover, there is no generalized system to augment search and filter operations on multi-media files from the information that may be gleaned from the associated arbitrary data.